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Monday, April 27, 2015

OK—here’s what I should have done: Taught my class at 8:15,
gone for a three-mile walk while listening to Cristobal de Morales, eaten
breakfast, written a blog post, taken the modem to Plaza las Américas (the Caribbean’s largest mall!) argued with the
lady at the modem place, prevailed, come back home and clean house. Oh,
somewhere along the line I would have eaten lunch, checked my email, glanced shudderingly at the news, and played an
hour of Bach suites.

What have I done?

Major news—I got out of bed.

If you are saying, “why, Marc, why is getting out of bed a
big deal,” then you don’t have what I have, nor do I know what I have. But
Andrew Solomon, as you can see below, does a rather wonderful job of writing
and describing the travelogue of depression, and his central point—that depression
is not just a big sadness, but rather the absence of vitality—is very true.

Perhaps you’ll say, “and so what have you got to be
depressed about,” and that’s a logical question, isn’t it? Except we’re not
dealing with logic here, or even reality, or maybe we are, since it turns out
that there may be something called depressive realism. Why can’t I tell you?
The Internet, feeling bored, stepped out for a cigarette.

So depressive realism is the theory, and you know what? Life
really does suck, and even if you’re not among the four thousand people in
Nepal who are—presumably—buried under ruble, well…guess what? You’re still
going to succumb to one of those deadly conditions predicated on your horrible
lifestyle, sicken, and then die, leaving sorrow and grief behind you. And
normal people get on with their lives and eat breakfast and teach their classes
and go about their lives, but Marc? Not today, since I got obsessed with seeing
a wailing Nepalese woman keening in front of the rubble that is now her house—and
I only had to watch that seven or eight times before it occurred to me:
The woman was half a world away, and my watching the video was doing nobody any
good. So—either send some money or not, but move on!

Move on, of course, meant the local paper, which is worrying
itself about 85 people arrested for prostitution. This, of course, actually
proves the point about depressive realism, since what was I, depressed,
worrying about? Well, from my warped / non-warped point of view, the sexual
peccadilloes of 85 people are relatively unimportant, since we have until the
end of the week to cough up some unthinkable sum to our creditors, and the
government obviously doesn’t have the money, since it says it’s broke and will
have to close in three months. Sorry, guys, but does it take little Marc to
point that out?

Right, then it was time for Facebook, which I was dreading,
since the marginal possibility that anybody would post anything interesting was
completely surpassed by the probability that I would be presented with change
of profile pictures, pray for Nepal messages, and—certainly my favorite for
someone who had to force feed himself breakfast—pictures of meals relished and
devoured.

OK, so then it was on to YouTube, where I looked for—hold
onto your chairs, folks—videos of depression. But I had seen the BBC video, and
Andrew Solomon as well, but the thing about Solomon is that he’s stiletto-sharp
and very funny, and so I went along all very happily until 17:35, when the video
stuck and I spent several minutes looking at the little ball spin. In fact, I
probably spent a good 17:35 minutes watching the little ball spin when it
eventually dawned on me: First of all, great metaphor for depression!
Second, hit the refresh button. And guess what? The computer gulped, remembered
what it had been saying, and went right back to it!

This, if nothing else, told me: Depression is also a
cognitive disorder, since would it have taken that 17 minutes for a
non-depressed man to have made that realization? Don’t think so.

So now Solomon is talking about the stigmatization of
depression, which is a little crazy, since we’re all taking bucketsful of
antidepressants, so it’s sort of like sex: We all do it, but nobody talks about
it.

Of course, there’s another stigmatization going on, since my
brother—who has failed pretty badly as father, brother and son and feels great
about it, thanks!—recommended a book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, by
Robert Whittaker, and here, courtesy
of Amazon, is a brief summary:

Do
psychiatric medications fix “chemical imbalances” in the brain, or do they, in
fact, create them? Researchers spent decades studying that question, and
by the late 1980s, they had their answer. Readers will be startled—and
dismayed—to discover what was reported in the scientific journals.

Do I have to tell you? Simple explanation: Antidepressants
change the brain nueroreceptor system radically, and patients who take them for
acute episodes experience greater relapses more frequently than patients who
don’t take treatment. And eventually, you end up “hooked” on the
antidepressants.

Yes—apologies to Dr. Whittaker for the way
over-simplification.

Well, I had read this in the months past and gotten
annoyed—not with the psychiatrists who had given me these terrible drugs, but
with Whittaker, since what was the message I heard? Chin up, take it like a
man, stop whining and go on!

Of course, the other message is, “Get angry, get even, and
sue that Harvard-educated bastard doctor who gave me the pills that pulled me
out of a depression so that—on most days—I could write, teach, and even get out
of bed!”

Well, I’m in this state since I announced to that doctor
that my libido had flat-lined, which meant that I would have been completely
happy living like a Catholic priest, since celibacy was as easy nowadays as
singing in the shower. I am, however, married….

So on Saturday I had decreased my dosage of Lexapro 20 mg PO
QD to Lexapro 10 mg PO QD. Sunday, I felt OK, though I did have a fight with
Montalvo, who suggested that it was anal to object to his:

1. Missing the opera and

2. Arriving an hour and a half late to the dinner he had
invited himself to

I had made it, three days—well, two, actually—since I knew
what I had to do. So I took the extra 10 mg, waited the hour before it took
effect. Then I got out of bed and sat down to write this.

Like Solomon, I have all these questions about depression
and treatments and all the rest. Oddly enough, Lady is felled too, and is lying
in bed, recuperating from a surgery on her ankle. So we are both sick, right?

I wish I knew. I suspect I will take the Lexapro 20 mg again
tomorrow, and that I’ll feel better, and maybe even teach my class. Who knows,
maybe I’ll even be strong enough for Plaza las Américas!

Life, Death and Iguanas

Life, Death…and Iguanas?Yes, that’s the title of an e-book available on Amazon / Kindle. It’s the story of a woman who took charge of her death, just as she had her life. Of a family that split, and then united. Of a man who decided to live. Oh, and there’s some great stuff about iguanas….Read the first chapter by clicking here!